The Tattooed Soldier

Downtown Los Angeles is having a moment -- if it's not for the eating, or the art and hotel scene, or the clearing of the smog, it is for the set of designers and interesting people that have moved there. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hector Tobar (known for his work "The Barbarian Nurseries") may have released this book years before, but somehow, right now as DTLA cleans up its act more than 20 years after the riots, "The Tattooed Soldier" turns out to be a timely read.

LA, not unlike most of the US, is a place of immigrants: People who have come to the area to change their lives, to seek gold, fame or something better. But unfortunately that isn't always what happens, as the grass on the other side could actually be very much not green. The poverty of the city, evident as you drive from LAX to Downtown, is associated with tattoos, gangs, gold chains and shiny purple cars that are very low to the ground. What Tobar does with his novel is scratch off enough of the lottery ticket pad for you to see the complex relationship Latin America has with the U.S. - and that is what will keep you engrossed and encourage more research on the topic.

The 1992 riots of LA, although often considered mainly to have affected a Koreatown and the city's Korean political scene, affected every minority in the city -- in particular, the Hispanics in the area of South Central LA. 2Pac, Dr Dre and Ice Cube all have songs about the riots, possibly due to their severity: They were the largest riots seen in the United States since the 1960s, and the worst in terms of death toll after the New York City draft riots in 1863. The book doesn't dwell on details, but uses the riots and what they meant for the city of LA as a perfect backdrop as our characters tear flesh off themselves.

Characters in Tobar's book are almost rounded, but believable and most certainly intriguing - from the Guatemalan refugee Antonio Bernal to the tattooed Guillermo Longoria and female contrast Esther. But it's the intersection of these characters as they discover that the destruction of South America and their Third World home countries isn't so different across the border in fairyland America. The battle rages within them as they struggle to survive their hard lives, and the city burns outside of them - a perfect yin and yang of destruction in the shadow of poverty.

"The Tattooed Soldier"
Hector Tobar
$19.61
Picador